Rumors about the next-generation Xbox have been circulating for years. The next-generation Xbox, or Xbox 720 as some call it, is expected to launch later this year. There are some indications that Microsoft might unveil the next-generation Xbox ahead of E3 2013. Other rumors have put the price of the next-generation Xbox at around $400.

While most details of the next-generation console remain to be seen, leaked specs have surfaced this week that give some hardware specifications for the processor that will be the brains of the next-generation Xbox. The processor has x64 architecture and eight cores running at 1.6 GHz. Each of those CPU threads has its own 32 kB L1 instruction cache and 32 kB L1 data cache. Each module of the four CPU cores has its own 2 MB L2 cache giving the processor a total of 4 MB of L2 cache.

VGLeaks reports that each core has one fully independent hardware thread and doesn't share execution resources. Each hardware thread is also reportedly able to issue two instructions per clock cycle. The next-generation Xbox GPU is reportedly a custom D3D 11.1 class unit running at 800 MHz with 12 shader cores and 768 total threads.

Each of those threads is reportedly able to perform one scaler multiplication and additional operation per clock. A natural user interface sensor is also always present. That processor is reportedly paired with 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM.

The machine is also paired with a 6x Blu-ray drive, gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, and various hardware accelerators for image, video, and audio codecs. The machine is also tipped include a Kinect multichannel echo cancellation hardware chip and cryptography engines for encrypting and decrypting content.

Eh, I am playing my PC games "kicking back on the couch" too... oh well, with only a 46 inch TV. But still with the wireless XBox controller, and with better graphics settings than the XBox games have.

And your 'fraction of the total cost' comment is just making me feel sad about your math skills. The PC versions of games usually cost 2-3 times less than XBox versions, on release day. And when games gets older and into the bargain bins, PC versions are almost free, while I don't see that happening with console versions so much. Then there's user-created content, modding, save game trading, and so on. So much more versatility on the PC.

And absolutely every PC game that I ever had still works on my newest Win7 machine, and I have no doubts it will on Win8 and forward. Compatibility mode has seen a lot of improvement over the years and you can tell MS really did care to make most everything keep running... Game devs also try to patch the games for newer versions, and even the user community can sometimes hack up a patch for games that the devs abandoned. This is completely impossible on consoles.The move to 64-bit Windows dropped support for 16-bit apps, but still runs most 32-bit apps fine. You can run a win98 instance under Dosbox for your 16-bit windows games, and DOS games. And as a last resort, there is always VirtualBox, although honestly I do not have a game that needs that.All this means that even things that I played on my very first 286 can still work on my newest PC. At the same time, you can not run your old games on your new console. Having to keep your old console is a drawback, not a plus in this regard.

For the record, I do also have a Xbox 360, and I do enjoy it. But it is a fact that if something is not exclusive for it, it is usually better on the PC.